John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra (pdf)

Description

The book is a comprehensive examination of John Cage’s seminal Concert for Piano and Orchestra. It places the piece into its many contexts, examining its relationship with Cage’s compositional practice of indeterminacy more generally, the importance of Cage’s teacher, Arnold Schoenberg, on the development of his structural thought, and the impact of Cage’s (mis)understanding of jazz. It discusses, on the basis of Cage’s sketches and manuscripts, the compositional process at play in the piece. It details the circumstances of the piece’s early performances—often described as catastrophes—its recording and promotion, and the part it played in Cage’s (successful) hunt for a publisher. It examines in detail the various ways in which Cage’s pianist of choice, David Tudor, approached the piece, differing according to whether it was to be performed with an orchestra, alongside Cage delivering the lecture, ‘Indeterminacy’, or as a piano solo to accompany Merce Cunningham’s choreography Antic Meet.